quote:"Tennessee says it will reinvest a total of $18 million over three years back into athletics department"

Interesting. Now take all this below with a grain of salt knowing how rumors run on message boards, but this info seemed to be pretty detailed. Add that to the news from Schad. Might be something to it.

This was sent to us before Tennessee made Tuesday’s $18 million announcement:

quote:- Big money boosters have been working hard to make Gruden to Tennessee a possibility - Gruden has talked with and met with several current and former college coaches to ask them about things like the 20-hour rule, recruiting, etc. - Two of the coaches he met with have previously coached at Tennessee, so he was able to ask them specific questions about UT and Knoxville – not just the college game in general. We were asked not to mention the names, but they have been cropping up other places recently. - If Gruden were to come to Tennessee he would demand a lot of $ and a lot of control over the program. In terms of “control” it means things like reporting to one person only – anybody else is simply there to facilitate the needs of the coach. They aren’t there to tell him “no.” They’re there to get it done and to make the football program as successful as it can be. If the staff needs new video equipment, it’s ordered – there is no “permission” that needs to be given, etc. - Gruden is rumored to be asking for $4 to $5 million for staff salaries. What does that mean, exactly? It means he spends that money how he pleases. It means he hires as many strength coaches as he wants. He can hire as many GA’s, operations people, recruiting assistants, video assistants, academic advisors, trainers, class monitors, etc. as he wants. He doesn’t want to be told, “we’ve never done that here before.”

Gruden to Tennessee could turn them into a tough out for Alabama. Playing the likes of a shitty Tennessee team and Kentucky on the reg is real tough on Alabama right now.

Then again, as soon as Tennessee returns to power, we could expect the SEC to finally decide to drop common opponents altogether to help ease the difficulty of Alabama's schedule for the GOOD of the league.